


if you need to crash then crash and burn, you're not alone

by alexofmacedonia



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Everyone Needs A Hug, F/F, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, Wakes & Funerals, but it isnt in any graphic detail, canon divergent probably, guessing the ending, the violence warning is really just a precaution that violence is mentioned?, written with info we get from s3 act 1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-17
Updated: 2016-09-17
Packaged: 2018-08-15 12:20:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8056081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alexofmacedonia/pseuds/alexofmacedonia
Summary: the battle for silas is over, but our heroes now have to mourn the dead.an ending prediction one shot that takes into account that not everyone can survive something like this.





	if you need to crash then crash and burn, you're not alone

**Author's Note:**

> this is completely unedited, written in like two hours in the middle of the night. i just meant to write smut, idek how this happened. im sorry
> 
> title is from savage garden's 'crash and burn'

It was an uncharacteristically sunny September afternoon as Carmilla and J.P. planted their feet into shifting dirt and shoved a long, wooden boat out into the middle of a lake a few miles from campus. Inside, upon piles of kindling, lay the bodies of the fallen from the final battle: a few dozen Summer sisters, Kirsch's big brother Mitch, a staked Danny, LaFontaine, and an unpossessed Lola Perry. The assembled crowd of survivors watched in silence as the vampires walked back to rejoin them, and then Mel stepped forward.

Staring straight ahead, Mel ignored the hot trail of tears that ran down her cheeks and the tight burn of her throat and sinuses. She checked her bow string by giving it a couple practice pulls before reaching for an arrow from a barrel and nocking it. After the boat had floated far enough out, she drew the string back, aimed, and nodded for one of the Summers to step forward with a torch, lighting the gas-soaked rag on the tip on fire. As Mel let the arrow fly loose, another Summer began singing something in an ancient language, which was soon joined in by what was left of the glee club.

Laura wiped the back of her hand across her eyes, watching as the arrow landed in the boat and set the dead ablaze. She covered her mouth with her other hand to try and keep her sobs quiet, and her shoulders shook with the force of her effort.

She felt so guilty, knowing that many of these deaths would never have happened if she hadn't searched for her missing roommate. A few girls would have been sacrificed, yes, but it would only be a few deaths every twenty years, not the hundreds she had witnessed in the last year. Laura felt a strong hand pat her on the back before pulling her in to a side embrace, and she let herself hide her face in her father's familiar chest. At least she still had him, even if he'd lost an eye, as well as the girl on her other side who began rubbing soothing circles into her free hand.

The Summer's song came to an end, and Laura listened as Kirsch and one of his loyal brothers stepped forward to take turns reading out the names of the dead.

She knew this was all very hard on Kirsch, since most of his frat bros had joined the Corvae Corporation with Theo, and almost all of them had then been eaten by a hellbeast, with a penchant for anything with a Y chromosome, that had gotten loose when the Sixth Gate was opened. The Dean obviously hadn't meant for that to happen, since it wiped out ninety-seven percent of her army and half of the pit workers, so she killed the beast herself.

That all served to the Rebellion's favor, especially since the magic needed to kill the hellbeast greatly weakened the Dean. Using the four talismans, Mattie helped Carmilla, Laura, and LaFontaine with the binding spell. They thought it was over when the Dean stopped monologuing mid-sentence, said, "Oh dear," in a very Perry-like tone, and then collapsed.

Carmilla's fingers squeezed Laura's, as if she knew what Laura was thinking about right then, because what happened next was something no one could have predicted.

What everyone expected, based on translations from the Book of Lives, was that Lilita would be exorcised in a sense, and her spirit could then be caged, but instead, she was literally caged within Perry's body. Mortal, with no powers, and limited bodily control now that Perry's mind was back in charge.

Not knowing any of this yet, LaF had rushed to Perry's side, cradling her head in their lap while they cried and begged her to wake up. A few moments later, Perry's eyes opened, but she had been driven past the point of sanity by all she'd been forced to do and see while riding as a passenger in her own body.

Perry had shrieked, and before anyone could react, she'd jumped up and stabbed LaFontaine through the chest with a knife that she'd been holding minutes earlier as the Dean. A moment of lucidity had then washed over her face, and realizing what she'd just done, turned and ran toward Laura, who didn't react quickly enough, and Perry impaled herself on the Sword of Hastur that Laura had been holding.

The rest of the enemies were captured or killed in the following day, mostly by Mattie. Once Hell was locked securely behind the seventh Gate, and then geo-locked to wherever the Library would wander next, the remaining members of the Silas Scooby Gang finally declared victory.

The dead Corvae goons, Zetas that were loyal to the Dean, and most of the other baddies were dumped into a mass grave. After Laura learned that the Summers planned on a funeral barge on the lake for their sisters, she asked if everyone who had died for their cause could get that same honor, and while there was a three hour debate on whether Danny and Perry should be allowed, it was finally agreed upon.

It was Carmilla who had argued for Danny to be burned with her sisters, much to everyone's surprise: "The ginger giant and I might not have liked each other, and I hated some of her actions just like she hated some of mine, but in the end, she originally died fighting for the same thing we just accomplished. She was brought back against her will, made into something she never wanted to be, and the evil vampire we saw only existed because _Maman_ twisted her and made her that way. She didn't deserve this; the Danny Lawrence you all once knew deserves the end she was robbed of."

Mel herself stepped up on behalf of Perry: "I met her when we were both freshmen. She was weird, and from Hollis' vlogs she apparently never stopped being annoying, but she was a good person. She fought against the Dean in the first battle, and what happened to her from there was not Lola Perry's fault. She deserves to be remembered as a fallen hero from the Battle of Lustig, not for what that she-demon did while possessing her."

Laura tuned back in when she heard Kirsch's voice break as he read "Mitch Kirsch, a Zeta brother, class of 2014." They hadn't had a chance to talk since before Danny died the first time, but Laura had found out through other students that one of the Zetas working undercover for the Rebellion had managed to sneak a phone call out, alerting one of the Zetas who had been a senior when he was a freshman, who just happened to be Kirsch's big brother. He told him to find a vlog about Silas by a Laura Hollis, and Mitch popped up a couple weeks later, along with six other graduated bros, out of some secret tunnel that only a select few of the top Zetas ever knew about. He died pushing his little brother out of the way of the Y-chromosome-chomping beast.

Night was settling as the names finished with "Lophii, who could not be burned tonight as she was destroyed months ago, but who saved us for as long as she could by being stuck in that pit and totally preventing us from dying quicker." Cold autumn chills riding breezes down from the mountains swept through the crowd, effectively ending the funeral.

Most of the survivors began walking back to campus, where they would stay in their dorms until parents came to get them later in the week. Mel and the other Summers stayed where they were, stating that they would watch over the dead until they were finally at rest, and Kirsch convinced the few remaining Zetas to stand in solidarity.

Carmilla turned to Laura and Sherman. "Let's go, Hollises." Grabbing their hands, she poofed them to one of the semi-stable portals that the Library would dock at if they did the right knocking sequence.

There was nothing left at Silas for either Carmilla or Laura. No demanding god-demon-mothers, no journalism degrees, not even friends.

Sherman hugged his daughter before he went to his room to turn in for the night, reminding her that he wanted to get an early start heading home. He eyed Carmilla as he wagged his finger, "Don't stay up too late, I don't want to find out how vampires 'drive' while sleep-deprived."

In their shared bedroom, in their shared bed, Laura pressed herself against Carmilla's side, trying to make sure there wasn't a single inch of herself that wasn't somehow touching her ex-turned-on-again-girlfriend. It wasn't sexual, or even sensual really, and both of them knew that; they just needed the physical contact as a reminder that they'd survived. They had been through almost-literal hell, had lost many things along the way, but came out the other side strong, alive, and together.

**Author's Note:**

> visit me on tumblr - bibecamitchell


End file.
